Singing it's a wonderful Christmas

Nearly a hundred years ago, my grandparents met when singing in their church choir. I never heard my grandmother, Mary (said Marie) singing because she died before I was born. But her sister. Bess, taught her daughter, my aunt, to sing Irish folk songs, remembering all the verses. Her brother, Charles, was once approached to train as a tenor in the States because his voice was so good. My parents enjoyed music, my father in an amateur operatic society, and at home my mother playing the piano and the family singing, but I didn't know this history of singing in the family, until decades later. Like my grandparents I joined a chapel choir accompanying on guitar. I discovered how much fun singing is, and sang for my own pleasure throughout my twenties and thirties. Sadness and pain in my mid-forties stopped me singing.

Next Stage Choir: It's a wonderful Christmas

Some years ago, on a short acting school week (blogged at Itch scratched)  I rediscovered the joy of singing, and singing with others. I looked for singing lessons locally and tried a couple of choirs, but nothing worked until in February 2018 a new local community choir, Next Stage Choir started in our town. And loved its ambiance.
I love singing. I like the enthusiastic people I sing with. I enjoy the female friendship (not so many women in my work or tae kwon do), and the projects we have done and lined up to do. Our latest project has been to produce an album of Christmas songs. Here's a photo of the CD when it was released at midnight at the start of December.
We sound good. You'll enjoy listening and perhaps sing along when you download it (Amazon, Spotify, iTunes). If you want a CD, let me know and I'll get you one.
I wish I could share this news with my family - my mother who played the piano, my aunt who sang Irish tunes, and those grandparents who passed me the passion for singing when they married nearly a hundred years ago.

Life's not good

Life isn't too promising at the moment.
So sad and upset.
Saw parents and aunty just before Christmas, though I had been thinking of going up perhaps with husband this weekend, but son said he was going, and then my sister.  Trouble is now my sister can't go because her car wheels got broke in a ditch.
Mum, who used to read this blog, now can't see and not being able to see can't remember what she can't see, like the cup of coffee we've just put in front of her, and told her it's there.  But she has to see to know it, so she forgets we told her it is there.  To add to her misery, she's losing her hearing, so mis-hears and then can't make sense of what she thinks she heard, like "I've got a table in this document", she misheard as "I've got a cable in this document".
Aged Auntie has a different form of forgetfulness, and a stoic attitude that her local priest described as "Here day, go day, soon come Sunday" attitude  her.  Not only is she cheerful and accepting of life's restrictions, though she would like to stop falling, forgetting where she is and go out without having to have company to stop her falling and getting lost, but she is eating well, smiling, remembering better than she was and is philosophically accepting of life's trials.  She's our father's sister, and I can see the stoicism in them both, the stoicism that he is drawing on in his need to support our ailing mother.

At least son and new wife will be going for a few hours.  Mum doesn't welcome people for too long because she can't play the host any more, see the food in the freezer or what the dial on the microwave says.  She can't see other peoples' problems, like catching wheelchair wheels in a grubby rug, or an iron that is too clogged to steam any more. And she can't see what work her cleaner of 17 years does, an enthusiastic, honest and loyal worker.  Listen to her saying happy Christmas: https://audioboom.com/boos/2754739-carol

She's the salt of the earth, and like salt, a little cheer goes a long way.

Crumbs and buns

Aged auntie has a support plan. Adult social care services review an old person's needs and sets up support to enable them to carry on living independently. Five years ago, I had nine octogenarian relatives but now only five of them stagger on. Those who died, died still living in their own homes, their own lives into their nineties, but aged auntie can't control her own life any more she forgets - like you all forget "what did I come in this room for?" but she forgets more and more often - like whether she's eaten today, or that she came into this room for her food, that anyone visited her this morning and even how to get home from the shops, and that is scary for her. She's not got Alzheimer's and she can still do the Telegraph cryptic cross word, so you can see how frustrating, demeaning and maddening it is for her to forget every day. If she forgets to eat, she dizzy. If she forgets her medicine, she's in trouble.

Recently, AA sat down with ASC, mental health services, two friends from the Saint Vincent de Paul Society and me and we all her eating, shopping, and other things. The SVP is an interesting organisation. Years ago, AA was an active member, visiting old people in their homes, care homes, sheltered housing or community centres, chatting with them, keeping them company, she threw them crumbs of company and solace, thus making a loved and respected member of her community.

Now her turn has come, and those who watched her as a role model, now watch for her and hence came the SVP members to her review meeting. These are people who deal practically with AA - what I can't do living 200 miles away, people who observe AA getting thinner, and when AA tells ASC that she does her own shopping, shake their heads, so ASC know the real story.
AA built up her relationship with these people years ago; now they respect and even love her. I cannot sing their praises enough. AA's breadcrumbs are floating back to her as currant buns.

Memories are made of stuff

This head scarf is the first present my father gave my mother circa 1947. Eventually she passed it to me with admonishments to look after it, that it was important.

These other photos are of stuff I found in Aged Auntie's flat.

'Stuff' sounds so deprecatory, as if of no importance. But to AA these things are what remind her. Her iron is a professional tailor's iron and extremely heavy and AA was a professional tailor. When I insisted that it had to go because having too much meant that stuff hid important things, she asked me where I'd be taking it. I ventured, 'an antique shop?' to be told that it wasn't an antique and that it was still used professionally and AA had a certain intelligent glint in her eye, so I remembered the Moroccan tailor in our town and said that I'd take it there.

Then AA looked at the old tools I'd pulled out. They were her father's tools. "Chop-chop", she remarked as she looked at his axe - another memory.

Memories are contained in stuff, stuff that brings back memories of other people, other times, lives lived and passed. Memories keep alive, and that's why you don't want to take away old people's stuff, because you take away their memories.

LPA & banks agin

A very nice bank assistant now rings me and tells me that it is not possible to have two cards on a single named account, so if I have a card, then aunty can't have a card. Now that I've put the phone down, I think

"but we've had two cards for a year so why not now?"

Lloyds-TSB does not seem to have co-ordinated systems.

Uncle died

Less than a week after Aunty Grace's funeral, Uncle Les also died. When I saw him at A Grace's funeral, he invited us back to their house because we don't often have a family get-together. He never got back to his house from the funeral, and we all met up again for his funeral.

My aunt first married in 1942. The best man was Les Jones. Her husband was killed at Arnhem and in 1995, my aunt, having been a war widow for years, married Les Jones. My cousin emailed:

"They do say that it is the best man's duty to look after the bride, should anything befall the bridegroom. It took him a while, but he did eventually perform that duty."

When they married they'd hoped, they'd have ten years of companionship before one died, but they managed fifteen.

Les was bright, but confined to a wheelchair. He had problems which made eating and talking at the same time impossible. During the refreshments after my aunt's funeral Les choked on some food. My god daughter, a nurse, kept him alive until the first paramedic arrived, within 7½ minutes of my cousin's 999 call. Les was taken to hospital where, suffering from inhalation pneumonia and a collapsed lung, he arrested again, was resuscitated, but died peacefully with friends and relatives around him. My cousin emailed:

"Had he recovered sufficiently to be discharged from hospital he would have had very poor quality of life, and would almost certainly have had to go into residential care, which he had long resisted with all his not inconsiderable power. He was 93, so once again I believe it was his time to go and be reunited with my mother."